


Babysitting in the Bunker

by orphan_account



Series: Hermitcraft Strange Enough AU [5]
Category: Hermitcraft
Genre: Gen, LMAO, fallout stuff is mentioned, hermitcraft fusion au, specifically Jangles the moon monkey, strange enough au, too lazy to go back and fix my spelling mistakes, who is purposefully mid attributed as Jangles the space monkey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 09:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18808183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There is a BABYLOOSEIN TFC’S NUCLEAR BUNKER.





	1. Babysitting in the Bunker: Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Guys I’m so proud of that John Mulaney reference I came up with it just after I typed in the title and I was like huh there’s a baby in a bunker- there’s a HORSE LOOSE IN A HOSPITAL.
> 
> Basically I’m really tired.
> 
> This au belongs to Team-Star-Ghast-Cannon on tumblr! You should check them/the au out! You really should! Otherwise you’ll have no idea what’s happening.
> 
> This is an apology fic because of my actions in the fic known as ‘mouse’.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a baby in TFC’s nuclear bunker. 
> 
> Normally there are not babies in TFC’s nuclear bunker.
> 
> ...
> 
> How the f-

Babysitting in the Bunker: Chapter One

TFC groaned as he stepped out of the elevator, rolling his shoulders back and shaking his head, making a face as he heard the bones pop.

He was getting too old for this.

Sure, his storage system capacity was nearly doubled, sure, everything was running more efficiently than it had ever before...

But he still had lots of things to do.

Too many things to do.

So many things to do, and so little time...

He began to head towards the Overseer’s office when a small sound stopped him in his tracks.

“Ah!”

TFC froze. 

The sound repeated, more insistently.

“Ah, ah!”

“Oh, no...” he muttered, turning around slowly.

“Ah, ah, ah!” 

Just as he suspected. There, in front of him, sitting on the concrete floor of the bunker was a baby girl. Her tiny hands were outstretched, fingers making grabby motions at him as she repeated her insufferably cute demand. “Ah!”

“How on Earth-?” TFC muttered, running his hand through his beard, halfway torn between just leaving her there and texting the general chat and going to her.

She decided that for him as she happily tipped herself forward and began to crawl towards him, babbling under her breath.

“Oh for-“ He sighed, and moved towards her, crouching in front of her. “Hello.”

She laughed, and sat back, waving her hands in the air. “Ah ha!”

“How did you get down here?” TFC asked, reaching out a hand to her-

Her eyes widened, and she turned her head faster than he expected her to be able to, biting down on his first finger viciously.

“Oh.” He said. “No touching? But-“

Her reply was muffled by his finger. 

He sighed again, and gently wriggled his appendage free. She grinned at him in a shark like manner, convinced that she had shown him who’s boss-

Until he showed her his undamaged hand.

“You’ve got some pretty sharp chompers for a little tyke, I’ll give you that-“ he said, dodging her next attack and scooping her up. “But I’ve been working underground for longer than most of your caretakers have been alive. The last thing that pierced the skin on these hands was made of diamond.”

She complained and squirmed as he stood up, prompting him to frown. “Well don’t be such a hypocrite. You were the one that wanted my attention, now you want me to leave you alone?”

She blew a raspberry, and he rolled his eyes. “Do you want me to put you back?”

“No!” 

“And she speaks. I figured not.”

He shifted her weight to his right arm, holding up his left and gazing at the chunky device that was wired into his skin.

Sure, the Pip-Boy model he used might not be the most high tech of things, and maybe it was a bit slow, but it had its benefits.

Like it’s radiation level sensor, which he quickly checked before he flipped to the communication tab.

Low. Lower than ‘normal’ since he hadn’t been doing much for a while. That was good. That meant he could watch her from nearby without hurting her. 

[Gen-Chat]  
—————  
YESTERDAY  
... [Read_More]  
Scar: [cat.gif.36]  
Xisuma: Go to bed.  
—————  
TODAY  
TFC: the kid is in my base

[CLOSE]

No one appeared to be online at the moment. It was pretty early...

Hermi babbled something, and he bounced her a couple of times, thinking. What should he do?

He had a lot of things he needed to do. Really. He did. 

And according to what the others had said, she was a pretty hardy baby. He could probably just plop her down in the overseer’s living quarters and she’d be happy until someone came to pick her up.

Probably.

There was always a chance that something bad would happen and she would hurt herself, injure herself- what if she got really badly injured? It would be his fault, since he wasn’t watching her when she was in his bunker, in his care. He probably wouldn’t be allowed to watch her again. He wouldn’t let himself watch her again- what if it happened again? What if-

“Ow!” He said as Hermi grabbed a fistful of his beard and yanked. “Really?”

She smiled at him. “Pa! Pa da!” She sang.

“Pa-? Ta da? You just pulled my hair, and you think that warrants a ‘ta da’?” He said, but as she giggled he couldn’t help but smile.

There must be some task he could do with her. That way he could make sure she wouldn’t get hurt and still get things done.


	2. Babysitting in the Bunker: Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Google how do you entertain a baby when you’re a walking nuclear bomb and you haven’t interacted with kids for like fifty years?

Babysitting in the Bunker: Chapter Two

“Alright.” TFC said, rolling his chair over to the desk with the terminal on top of it. “I have to do some... paperwork, basically. On this terminal. This computer. Okay?” 

Hermi blinked up at him, and shoved her hand into her mouth. 

“Good to see we’re seeing eye to eye.” He said, picking her up off his lap and setting her on the desk. She promptly grabbed a file, which he grabbed from her, emptying the desk of any important papers after a second thought. “So you are going to sit there, and...”

He opened a couple of drawers, muttering under his breath until he found what he was looking for. “Aha!”

He pulled out a small leather bag, and opened it up, pouring its contents onto the desk. 

Out tumbled at least a dozen gemstones, some random cool looking rocks and bones, a set of golden dice.

“And you can play with these rocks.” He said, setting the bag down and looking at her expectantly.

She looked at him like he was insane, and took her hand out of her mouth. 

“What?” He said, putting his elbow on the desk and leaning his chin on his hand. “Rocks are cool. Kids like rocks. I liked rocks when I was a kid. Look-“ he picked up one of the dice and shook it, rolling it across the desk, where it stopped at Hermi’s feet. “Wow! Isn’t that cool? You don’t know numbers yet so I suppose that doesn’t matter to you, but that’s a natural twenty. That’s really good.”

“You can at least appreciate the cool noise it makes and how shiny it is or whatever, right?” 

Hermi reached out for the die slowly, and picked it up. After examining it for a moment, she made direct eye contact with TFC...

And popped it into her mouth.

“SHI-“ TFC darted forward, grabbing her and forcing her mouth open. “No! Don’t ea- you don’t eat these!” He grabbed the die, avoiding her bite, and scooped the rest of the dice and rocks back into the bag.

Hermi glared at him, folded her arms and stuck out her tongue.

TFC resisted the urge to stick his tongue out back at her, stowing the bag away in the desk. “No.”

She babbled grumpily for a moment, and then tried to crawl off the desk. He caught her and sighed, standing up. “Alright. Let’s find something else to do.”


	3. Babysitting in the Bunker: Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So plan A didn’t work. That’s fine.
> 
> So plan B isn’t working.
> 
> That’s... 
> 
> ...fine...

Babysitting in the Bunker: Chapter Three

“Take that out of your mouth. With sharp teeth comes the responsibility of not chewing on everything you see.” TFC said, pulling the spoon away from Hermi. “Where did you even get this? We’re nowhere near the dining hall.”

Hermi just babbled and clapped her hands, quickly scooting over to him and clinging to his leg. He sighed, setting down the book he had been holding. “You know, research is necessary if you want to learn how to do something. I could do a lot more research if you would play with the toys I got you.”

She shook her head, pressing her face into his leg, and he sighed, moving over to the corner where he had set all the toys he had found. He sat down carefully, and Hermi relinquished her hold on his leg.

“See-“ he scooped up a letter block, waving it in front of her. “You can do all sorts of things with this! You can make words- you don’t know how to spell, never mind. You can make buildings and cities... no?” 

Hermi fell over, and waved her arms and legs in the air. TFC made a face, and put the block aside, instead reaching out to pick up- “And look at this! This is Captain Jangles, the Space Monkey... and he needs a partner. With the two of you together, you could explore every star in the galaxy. Save the planets from the evil communist overlords and ha-.” He stopped, looking into Jangles’ eyes.

Hermi made a curious noise and sat up, crawling onto TFC’s lap next to Jangles. “Pa?”

“No, I’m TFC.” He said absently. “And I... I didn’t realize how long it’s been since I was a kid.”

“Lo ti?”

“Yeah, a long time. You know, they used to drill it into our heads that the communists were the enemy. It was in very tv show, on every radio station, in all the movies. The red guys were the bad guys.” He slowly opened and closed Jangles’ visor. Hermi snuggled into him, reaching out and pressing the buttons on the front of Jangles’ suit.

“They said watch out for the communist propaganda, but they didn’t tell us that they were force feeding us propaganda too.” He said, unable to keep a bitter tone from leaking into his voice. “They weren’t all bad. They were just people. Trying to survive. Just like most capitalists aren’t bad people. We’re all just trying to survive...”

“Tiffcy.” Hermi said quietly. 

“Yeah.” He replied quietly. “That’s me. Good ol’ TFC. Locked up in his bunker cause he doesn’t realize times have changed.” He shut Jangles’ visor with a snap, and cleared his throat loudly. Hermi jumped slightly, and bumped her head into his chest.

“Anyway!” He said. “Jangles is a space explorer, and I haven’t been doing much of that lately. Would you be willing to help me out and take over that job for me?”

Hermi glanced up at him, and then reached out, taking Jangles from him and hugging the toy to her chest. “Mine?”

“Yeah. It’s about time I passed him on.” TFC said, smiling and ruffling her hair.

With that, he scooped her and Jangles up and stood, groaning a little bit. “Alright. Enough of all that. You’re right- research is boring. Let’s see what else we can do. You know... You and Jangles together might be too heavy for me. I have a bad back, you know.”

“Ba ba.” Hermi agreed seriously, pulling off one of Jangles’ boots and dropping it. “Oops.”

“I literally just told you I had a bad back. Now you want me to bend over and pick that up?”

“Ja!”


	4. Babysitting in the Bunker: Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, in order to stick to plan you have to get rid of the plan.
> 
> Sometimes, in order to stick to plan, you have to say goodbye.
> 
> But if you never say goodbye, you never get to say hello again... so maybe it isn’t such a bad thing?

Babysitting in the Bunker: Chapter Four

Hermi cheerfully dragged Jangles across the floor, humming to herself busily as she crisscrossed the room.

TFC tried not to trip over her as he attempted to dust the shelves in the storage room.

After the fourth near disaster, and knocking over half a shelf worth of packaged miniature snack cakes, he sighed and gave up, tossing his duster aside.

Checking his Pip-Boy, he found that it had been almost two and a half hours, and no one had responded to his text. 

[Gen-Chat]  
—————  
YESTERDAY  
... [Read_More]  
—————  
TODAY  
TFC: the kid is in my base  
—————  
TFC: she’s still here...  
TFC: are all of you dead? no notifications  
TFC: pip broken or something?  
TFC: hello?

[CLOSE]

He switched to his radiation levels. Still low. High than they were before, but with all this excitement, he kind of expected that.

If Hermi was here for more than another hour or two, he might have to start getting creative. He didn’t want to leave her alone. 

And then, of course, if nobody responded for another hour or two he’d have to start getting worried and looking for people.

Hermi made a motorboat sound and rammed into his legs. He crouched down and grinned at her. “Oh no! Did you just crash your spaceship?”

“Dangle!” She cried, holding up the monkey and shaking him.

“And Jangles is hurt? And you’re stranded on an alien planet? Oh no! Looks like we need to go look for some medical supplies.” He held out his hands. “Come on, let’s get in the rover and explore this planet and see what we can find.”

As it turned out, they found some cleaning supplies, several very hostile aliens (sheep), lunch, the entrance to the mine (twice) and finally a box of My Little Skelehorse bandages, which Hermi had a fabulous time using.

She proudly displayed the now bandage covered Jangles to TFC, who laughed and slid down his visor, which was almost completely covered. “I think we might need to make some eye holes.”

His Pip-Boy beeped, and he glanced at the screen to see- a reply. Finally.

[Gen-Chat]  
—————  
...[Read_More]  
—————  
TFC: hello?  
—————  
Doc: What the heck?  
Doc: Chef?  
Doc: Why is it noon?  
TFC: because it was dawn almost six hours ago?  
TFC: where have you been?  
Doc: Asleep  
TFC: really?  
Doc: Yeah. I went to sleep last night and I just woke up now. Alarm didn’t go off  
TFC: weird  
TFC: are you gonna come get the kid?  
Doc: Yes of course, just give me a minute. I need to talk to X and see what’s going on  
TFC: i doubt he’s awake either  
TFC: nobody’s talked since last night  
Doc: Well hopefully he wakes up soon  
Doc: I’ll be over in a second  
[CLOSE]

TFC sighed, and turned to Hermi, who was chewing on one of Jangles’ paws very carefully. He picked her up and bounced her a couple of times, smiling as she laughed. “Did you have a good time?”

Her brow furrowed, and she tilted her head. “Tiffcy?”

“It’s time for you to go now. Your Opa’s gonna come and pick you up and minute.”

“Opa!” She said, grinning. “Opa, Opa, Dangle!”

“Yeah you can show him Jangles when he gets here. We’re gonna meet him up top, okay?” TFC said, beginning to move towards the elevator.

“Upkayyyy.” Hermi hummed, hugging Jangles to her chest.

The sun was high in the sky when they stepped out into the perfectly manicured lawn of Sahara. TFC squinted in the light, shifting Hermi to his right arm and glancing at the time.

Hermi squealed happily and squirmed, and TFC looked up to see a figure flying down towards them.

Doc landed in front of them neatly, his elytra folding behind him, stowing away his rockets and holding out his arms. “Hey Hermi! How was your day?”

TFC almost hesitated to hand her over.

She rubbed her cheek against his, and gave him one last hug and then Doc picked her up. 

“Tiffcy, Dangles.” She told him, showing him the monkey.

“Jangles, huh? As in Jangles the Space Monkey? I’m honored.” Doc said, shaking the proffered paw. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” He looked up at TFC. “You’re really...?”

TFC shrugged, putting his hands in his pockets. “She likes him. I haven’t given him the care he deserves. Besides, I’ve got a lot more old stuff. You know?”

“Thank you for watching her. I don’t know what’s gone wrong with our stuff, but I’m going over to X’s place to talk to him- and if need be wake him up- directly. Would you like to come with?”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” Doc knew he was going to say that. “I’ve got a lot of stuff I need to work on.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Doc said, turning and spreading his elytra-

“Wait!” TFC said.

“Yeah?” Doc said, turning back around.

“I... if you ever need a babysitter, give me a call, okay?”

Doc smiled. “Of course.”

“Au vi Tiffcy!” Hermi said, waving with one hand and making Jangles wave with the other.

“Auf widershen!” Doc said, saluting, and then he jumped into the air, firing a rocket. Hermi’s laughter echoed.

TFC waved until he couldn’t make out Hermi’s face anymore, and then watched until both of them were gone.

Finally, he turned back to the bunker. His Pip-Boy beeped, alerting him that his radiation levels were back to normal.

Back to work.


End file.
